Day 48: Muddy Gap, WY to Atlantic City, WY

According to the map, I had one reliable island of civilization between me and my destination.  Jeffrey City was a little over twenty miles away, which made it a good candidate for breakfast, but then it looked like I was on my own after that.  I swung by the gas station and stocked up on water, sports drinks, snacks, and vacuum-sealed sandwiches before striking out into the barren wilderness.

I passed another pioneer landmark, Split Rock, but it was too early in the day to stop and play tourist.  Besides, I was able to grab breakfast at the Split Rock Bar & Café in Jeffrey City, so that’s about the same thing…right?

As I pedaled on into the landscape of low hills and dry plains, I couldn’t help noticing an increasingly odd feature of the local terrain.  There were random fences scattered out in the fields, and I couldn’t discern any purpose for them.  There were the fences that ran along either side of the road, and those made sense, but then there were these high, gap-planked fences ranging from 50-feet long to sometimes hundreds of feet.  There was no logic that I could see to the spacing or angle in which they were arranged.  Maybe something for the livestock to stand behind when the wind blew, or a place for them to find shade, perhaps?  I’d have to ask someone, assuming I ever encountered another person.

I was happy to reach a lone rest area right around lunchtime, but I was annoyed by a sign they had there: “No Overnight Camping.”  Not that this would have stopped me if I reached this spot at the end of a long, hot day.  It just seemed to be against the code of the West not to allow travelers respite in this modern-day version of an oasis.  This place had a playground, for goodness sake!  The least they could do is not get all snippy and post such an inhospitable sign.

I still had a lot of miles to cover, so lunch at the rest area was a quick, unsatisfying affair.  A half hour of riding later, I was pleased to find a different kind of sign – one that made me extremely happy – “6% Downhill Grade.”  Weeeee!  The next three miles were an effortless breeze.  The only problem was that it was hard to keep my eyes on the road due to the great views I was being offered on the way down.  I even when so far as to stop to take in the scenery a couple times, losing all that downward momentum, but knowing I could regain it in a matter of seconds.

The big downhill had me smiling for the next hour, then I hit the sign announcing an impending construction zone.  Once again, it was all construction with no construction workers anywhere in sight.  And this one had it all.  The pavement was torn up and replaced with coarse gravel.  Trenches ran along the sides, so not only wasn’t there a shoulder, there was a deadly mantrap instead.  Once through that, I reached the ever-popular grooved pavement.  In the middle of this stretch, there was the always fun single lane and stop light arrangement.  You know, the kind where there’s enough time to get through if you’re in a vehicle, but if you’re on a bicycle the light changes when you’re only midway through.  I finished out the four-mile obstacle course with another run of bone-rattling gravel before being returned to the glory of smooth pavement.

After a few more long downhills, it was time to pay the piper.  Time to go up.  And up.  And up some more.  While not especially steep, it was relentless.  It took almost eight miles of grinding uphill before I could see a potential flat spot ahead – could this be the top?  Dare I imagine?  As I rounded the curve, I was assaulted by (you guessed it) another evil sign: “High Wind Area.”  Gaaahhh!  Nooooo!  The light wind I had been doing my best to ignore on the way up was bad enough, I didn’t need to be mercilessly buffeted by high winds after all that climbing.

It only took a few minutes for my angst over the prevailing zephyrs to evaporate.  Once I came around the switchback and out onto the flatish straight away I had seen from below, I was looking out over the Red Canyon Wildlife Area – and it was spectacular!  I stopped at an overlook and gawked at the gorgeous expanse spreading out beneath me.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  The land sloped down from my left like a gargantuan swath of green felt.  To the right was an escarpment with a face of red leading away into the far distance.  All was surrounded by a halo of hills and peaks that cradled this immense natural diorama that evoked a sense of the primordial earth that could almost be felt in the DNA that had been passed down from hominid ancestors.  Yeah, it was that frickin’ cool.

All the sweat and suffering of the day melted away as if it never happened as I stared out over the breathtaking scene.  Now I know exactly what it’s like to go through the pain of labor and childbirth, then forget it all the moment your newborn is presented to you.  (I can hear you rolling your eyes out there, ladies!)  Anyway, it was pretty awesome.  I got out my camera and began taking pictures, knowing that they wouldn’t even come close to matching the experience of being there.  So, I guess it was a good thing that I was there!

What I Learned: BLM campgrounds are awesome!  Not only are they cheap, but they can pop up where you least expect them.  Like right next to yet another town in Wyoming that has “city” in its name but in reality is more like a remote collection of a few dozen cabins and trailer homes (and a closed general store).

Distance Today: 81 miles
Total Distance: 2,536 miles